QRZ! Ham Radio 11/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 11.iso/files/misc/hb305.exe/EXPERT.DOC

Text File | 1993-01-24 | 17.1 KB | 442 lines

This section contains information of use to HamBase owners who
wish to know more about some of the more complicated features of
the program.  HamBase can be used very successfully without
reading this document.

On the other hand, HamBase has many capabilities which are available
to the enthusiastic informed user who wants to explore and experiment
a little.  This information may be of use to such users.

Always have backups available that you can return to if something
gets screwed up.  If you are going to experiment, you should try
and understand what it is you are doing.  Whether you understand or not,
something can still go wrong.  If it does, you need to be in a position
to undo what you have done and revert to what you know worked before.

In the worst case, you can always re-install the entire package from
the distribution diskettes.

Occasionally an error may occur which can be fixed with a text editor
and a simple change to the HAMBASE.CFG file, or the HB93.MAP file.

INSTALL.LOG
-----------

As the installation proceeds errors are saved to the file INSTALL.LOG
in the destination directory. This information can be useful for diagnosing
errors which may have occurred during the installation.

The Configuration File
----------------------

HAMBASE.CFG is the configuration file which tells the program which
options to use.  It is a text file, and can be edited with any
ASCII text editor which does not insert control characters or document
instructions.

ALWAYS back up HAMBASE.CFG before making any changes.  If something goes
wrong, you can always revert to the original working version.

In general, instructions to HamBase are in the following form:

    OWNER=WA9L

These lines must contain no spaces between the variable name and the =
sign, or between the = sign and the assigned value.

A comment above each instruction describes what it does.  If the CFG file
gets corrupted and HamBase starts to act strangely, check for missing
or duplicated variables.  Compare the HAMBASE.CFG file on the distribution
diskette with the one you are now using.  The CFG file actually being
used is displayed as the first line in the display produced by the
CONFIGURE | VIEW DATA FILES menu selection.

You can easily look at the CFG file from within HamBase with the BROWSE
TEXT command.

OWNER= j-Com 

Up to 10 characters can be used for the owner name.  Spaces are allowed.
Some special ascii characters will work, others will not.  Experiment if
you like.  At some time in the future, we are hoping to institute a modem
subscription data service.  If we do this, the data will be encrypted and
only usable if you use your call sign and a special password which we will
send you.

STARTUP=LOOKUP

If you set this command, HamBase will go directly to the callsign lookup
function without stopping for the first menu.  You can return to the
menu structure with the Esc key.

PATH1=C:\HAMBASE
PATH2=
PATH3=
PATH4=
PATH5=
PATH6=

These paths can be filled in from the CONFIGURE | DATA FILES | GENERATE
DATA MAP menu item.  They must be valid paths on your disk drive, or
refer to a drive properly configured in your CMOS as removable.  Look
for duplication of these variables if HamBase acts strangely.  They must
appear only once in the HAMBASE.CFG file.

COLOR0=BROWN
COLOR1=GREEN
COLOR2=RED
COLOR3=YELLOW
COLOR4=BLUE
COLOR5=WHITE
COLOR6=CYAN
COLOR7=BLACK
COLOR8=WHITE
COLOR9=BLACK

These are the color selections used.  They are explained in CONFIGURE |
COLORS.  Press F1 for a description of the order of color selection.

REM========================================|
QSL1=Confirming a 20 m SSB QSO with $CALL$
QSL2=At $HR$:$MIN$z on $MON$ $DAY$, $YR$
QSL3=Please QSL Thank you.  -73-
QSL4=
REM========================================|

The information for the four lines of the QSL label.  The maximum line length
is indicated in the surrounding REM statements.

COUNTY=C:\HAMBASE\HBCOUNTY.A

The path to the county name data.

NAMES=C:\HAMBASE\USA.IDX

The path to the name index currently in use.

NEW=C:\HAMBASE\HBNEW.A

The path to the file that new data will be added to.

HELP=C:\HB93\HAMBASE.HLX

The path to the help screens.

PRINTFILE=PRN
PRINTTOP=1
PRINTBOTTOM=2
PRINTLEFT=5

The printer file or device and the margin settings.

MAP=C:\HAMBASE\HB93.MAP

The path to the map of files used by HamBase 3.0.

MAP FILES
---------

HamBase 2.x used the file HB92.MAP for its map.  HamBase 1.x used the file
HAMBASE.MAP for its map.  Some logging and BBS software may make use of the
earlier MAP format to access the data directly.  If this is the case, you will
only be able to access as much information as was available in that
earlier version.

For example, users of Pavilion Software's DX Spotting Network were still
restricted to accessing the data from version 1.0 of HamBase at the
time of writing this document.  That means that UPDATE files, HBTEXT files,
and county data could not be accessed.

HamWindows uses HB92.MAP as of this writing and can access UPDATE and
HBTEXT data, but not HBNEW.A file data.

When you Generate Map Files, the HAMBASE.MAP AND HB92.MAP files are also
generated for compatibility.


HB93.MAP
--------

This is the map HamBase uses to find its way through the data files.  It
searches the files in the order they are shown in this map.  Although we
recommend a certain order, there is no reason why you couldn't change the
search order if a different one were convenient for your application.

A typical HB93.MAP file might look like this:

NEW 3A     S5     C:\HAMBASE\HBNEW.A
HBA AA0A   NO0GFT C:\HAMBASE\HAMBASE.A
HBA WA0RVX KA1RTW C:\HAMBASE\HAMBASE.B
HBA KA1RTX WA2LKX C:\HAMBASE\HAMBASE.C
HBA VE0DP  VE8YQ  C:\HAMBASE\CANADA.A
HBT 4K3BB  YL3KZ  C:\HAMBASE\HBTEXT.A
HBT 0T6C   ZZ9A   C:\HAMBASE\HBTEXT.B
HBT AD0H   WT7M   C:\HAMBASE\HBTEXT.C
HBT 1A0    ZZ0T   C:\HAMBASE\HBTEXT.D

The code at the left indicates the format of the file so that HamBase
can use the correct search algorithm on the file.

As you can see, the file HBNEW.A, which contains updates and changes
entered by the user is searched first.  Only if the call is not found
in that file will HamBase go on to search the other files.

Next, the HBA files contain data compressed in the proprietary HamBase
compression scheme.  US and Canadian data and updates are compressed
using this method.  Files are searched only if the callsign lies in
the range shown in columns two and three.

Finally, the HBT files contain ascii data with one line per call sorted
in alphabetical order.  In this example, HBTEXT.A contains the Russian
callsign data, HBTEXT.B contains DX QSL data, HBTEXT.C contains our club
list which gets merged into the HAMBASE files when they are created, and
HBTEXT.D contains an older DX QSL file.

MULTIPLE MAPS
-------------

It is sometimes desirable to separate two or more sets of data.  In this
case, it is possible to generate more than one map.  You can have one
map for the DX data, one map for the US data, one map for the Russian
data, one map for the packet BBS data, one map for the Old Call data,
one map for your list of friends,and so on.  To change maps, go to
Configure - Data Paths - Special Files, and change the name of the
map file to the new one you want to use.

FILE FORMATS
------------

NEW  and  HBT

The NEW files contain address information in any order.  HamBase uses
an advanced text searching algorithm to linearly search this file.

As you can see, if the file gets very large, the search speed will slow
down.  Normally, files of less than 500K are not a problem.  However,
it may be advantageous to sort the file using DOS SORT if it is small,
QSORT (a shareware sort program for large files), or the sort utility
of a database or spreadsheet program.

Once a file is sorted into alphabetical order, it can be used as an HBT file.
HBT files are searched with a binary search which requires only
a few disk reads to find any given record.

QSORT HBNEW.A HBTEXT.X will sort HBNEW.A and put the resulting sorted file
into HBTEXT.X.  You can enter HBTEXT.X (or whatever you call it) in the
MAP file manually, or you can delete HBNEW.A and generate a map file
using the internal HamBase commands.  If you use the internal HamBase
command ( CONFIGURE | DATA | GENERATE ), the HBTEXT file will be added
to the end of the MAP file.  It will then not be searched before the
HBA files.  If you want to search for revised addresses you have entered
for hams in the HBA files, you must manually edit the HB93.MAP file to
the correct order.

HBT files can also be merged together using the MERGE utility program
which is provided on the program disk.  This will speed up access time
because it does not take HamBase much longer to search a very large
sorted text file than a small one.  It does take twice as long to
search two small ones.  So, use MERGE as follows.

     MERGE HBTEXT.A HBTEXT.B HBTEXT.X

to merge the HBTEXT.A file and the HBTEXT.B file into the new file HBTEXT.X.

Then, remove HBTEXT.A and HBTEXT.B from your HamBase directory, rename
HBTEXT.X as HBTEXT.A, and generate a new map file to reflect the changes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

MERGE will a automatically remove deleted records from HBNEW.A
To merge your new data with an existing HBTEXT.A file:

    COPY HBTEXT.A A:                    Backup your HBTEXT.A somewhere
    COPY HBNEW.A A:                     Backup your HBNEW file somewhere

    QSORT HBNEW.A TEMP.1                to get the records in order

    MERGE HBTEXT.A TEMP.1 TEMP.2        merges old data with new data

    DEL HBTEXT.A                        throw away old data
    DEL HBNEW.A                         throw away new data
    RENAME TEMP.2 HBTEXT.A              Make the merged data an HBTEXT file

    HB                                  CONFIGURE - DATA PATHS - GENERATE
                                        Generate a new map to the data.

Remember to always make backups before doing these kinds of operations.
When something goes wrong - and it will - you can always go back and
start over.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few words about HBNEW.A
-------------------------
Deleted records are not immediately removed from the HBNEW.A file
that HamBase uses to store new and changed records.  They are
marked by ORing the first character with 0x80.  The character will
therefore appear to be a strange looking graphic character when reading
this file with an editor.  Beware of editors that modify these characters
automatically.

As the files gets larger, HamBase will ask from time to time if
you want to remove deleted records to save space in the file. Until
they are removed, you can go back and examine them, or even undelete
them with a simple change of the first character in the line.

If a record appears twice in this file with the same callsign, only
the first occurrence will be visible to HamBase.

Any file can be added to the HB93.MAP with the designator NEW.
HamBase will search it for callsigns in the first few columns.

As the HBNEW.A file can get very large, you will need an editor that
can handle large files, or you should sort it and rename it as an
HBTEXT file.

The BINGO shareware editor can edit files of any length if you
have enough disk space.

The QSORT shareware program will sort files of any length if you
have enough disk space.

Neither of these programs are j-Com products.  We are only recommending
them so you know what to look for if you do not already have utilities
to do these things.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

HBT Files
---------
HBT files are text files sorted into alphabetical order.  If an HBT
file is labelled as a NEW file, it will be searched linearly.  If a
NEW file is sorted, and labelled as an HBT file, it will be searched
with a binary search.

The main difference betweeen NEW and HBT files ( HBNEW.x and HBTEXT.x)
is that HBT files are sorted and NEW files are not.  NEW files also
contain records marked for deletion.  HBT files must never contain
a duplicate callsign.

MERGE FILE NUL NUL will check for duplicates in file FILE.  The DOS
file NUL is a special file for sending output to the bit bucket -
i.e. nowhere.

Record formats
--------------
Text data in NEW and HBT files may be in one of several formats. US
calls are usually stored in comma delimited form broken into fields.
The format can be seen using the BROWSE | CALLS menu, or by exporting
HAMBASE data in comma delimited format without the county information.
(County names are looked up according to the zip code.)

The standard text data format is:

CALL,CLASS,FIRST NAME,LAST NAME,STREET,CITY,STATE,ZIP CODE,BIRTHDATE

CLASS is always one character long.

Names may not contain punctuation other than apostrophes.

The state must be 2 characters long.

ZIP CODE must be numeric only.

BIRTHDATE is in Julian form (2 digit year and 3 digit day of year).

There must be exactly 8 commas on the line.

This format of data is formatted into an address according to a set
of rules.

Text format:

A second format is used for DX data and other information which
does not fit the standard format above developed for use with US
callsign data:

CALL,CLASS,LINE 1|LINE 2|LINE 3|LINE 4

This format is useful for different forms of data.  The callsign must
be terminated with a comma.  There must be a single character CLASS,
and then there are four lines separated by the | symbol.  Clearly, the
| symbol cannot appear in the data itself.

Free form:

CALL,CLASS,TEXT

The simplest format of all is based on just the callsign, a single
character class, and free form text.  A word wrap function displays the
text in the address window without regard to what falls on each line
other than to attempt to not split words.

HamBase distinguishes the display formats by counting the number of
commas and the number of | symbols.  If there aren't 8 commas, or
3 | symbols, the free form display method is used.


Accessing HamBase from other programs
-------------------------------------

Authors of logging programs and BBS systems are encouraged to write
access "doors" to HamBase. We highly recommend that all access to
the program be done by calling the HamBase program with the callsign
as an argument and collecting the output stream in a file.

HB WA9L >TEMP   This will look up the call and output to a temp
                file which can be read by the calling program.

We will always try to maintain versions of HamBase which will
accept a callsign command line argument and output to the standard
output stream.

The following methods are used by various logging programs and
BBS programs.  We will attempt to provide this method of access
in future releases, but cannot guarantee that they will always work.


HB -o=TEMP WA9L >NUL   This will output in comma delimited form and
                       discard other output.

HB -~=TEMP WA9L >NUL   Same as -o, but includes county in the data.

HB -i=INLIST >NUL    Method for reading a list of calls.

HamBase 3.0 requires more memory than the previous versions.  If the
calling program does not allocate enough memory, you may get an
out of memory error message.  If this occurs, you can use the
SHROOM utility to swap the calling program to disk or extended memory
so that you will have enough base memory available for HamBase.

SHROOM is a shareware program available on CompuServe GO IBMSYS Lib 3,
and on the Mountain Retreat BBS [phone].


RAM DISK
--------
Performance of HamBase can be improved by the judicious use of a RAM
disk.  If you are doing a lot of lookups that involve the county,
it would be a very good idea to copy the county name file HBCOUNTY.A
to your RAM disk and change the configuration of the Special Files
to point to it.  This will speed up all US lookups.

You can also install HBNEW.A on the RAM disk for a further improvement
in speed if you have added a lot of new calls yourself.  There is a
danger in placing HBNEW.A on a RAM disk.  If you add any new calls,
it will be necessary to copy the file from the RAM disk to your hard
drive before turning off the computer.

The Lookup display shows which file the data is retrieved from.  If you
are making extensive use of any one file, it can be put in the RAM
disk for maximum performance.

If you have a large RAM disk, the name index can be placed on it for
faster name browsing.


Technical questions regarding HamBase should be sent via email to
the internet address [e-mail] or the CompuServe
address 72470,3171.  NetMail by fidonet can be sent to Peter Jennings
1:216/506, or messages can be left on the Mountain Retreat BBS
[phone].